The real reason for Malawi’s recurring food crises is chronic, deepening poverty, says Bernice Romero, Oxfam International’s advocacy and campaigns director.
It is good news indeed that the international relief effort to meet Malawi’s food crisis is, by and large, functioning. Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of aid are pouring into the country, keeping people alive through the lean months of the “hunger gap” until the next harvest.
But this emergency aid is only a sticking plaster - just as it was in 2002, the last time Malawi suffered such mass hunger. It will save many lives, but it does little to address the deeper malaise at the heart of Malawi’s cycle of suffering.
While the mass hunger in Malawi may be triggered by erratic rainfall, the real reason for the recurring crises is poverty – chronic, deepening poverty. The insidious impact of HIV/AIDS has played a major role in this downward spiral. But so too have failing agricultural and economic policies.
Over the past two decades, subsistence farmers who make up the majority of the population across southern Africa have seen their livelihoods steadily eroded. Their ability to farm their land has been damaged by years of misguided agricultural policies – often foisted on their governments by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Government schemes to support farmers, a fact of life in Europe, were dismantled in the name of “structural adjustment”. Basics, such as subsidised fertiliser and seed distribution programmes were cut back as conditions attached to loans.
Visit any village in Malawi and farmers will be clear about what they need: stable, predictable support – not politicised policies that change year on year, depending on the latest fashion or favour.
QUICK FIXES NOT ENOUGH
But hunger is not only caused by people’s inability to grow enough food. It is also about their inability to buy food when their own produce runs out. Malawi’s state-run market system, which used to buy food in the good years to sell at controlled prices in the bad ones, is now virtually bankrupt. Alongside this, the private market system does have food available – but at sky-high prices, which the rural poor cannot afford to buy.
As well as distributing food aid, Oxfam is running a pilot “cash transfer” programme for 6,000 of the most vulnerable families, enabling them to buy locally available food. The choice this provides does less to distort local markets than a sudden influx of free food, although the latter also has an essential part to play in meeting immediate and urgent needs.
HIV/AIDS is certainly greatly exacerbating poverty and hunger in Malawi. The epidemic is cutting a swathe through the productive generation – teachers, civil servants and nurses as well as farmers. In villages across the country, there is a preponderance of the elderly and the very young. Whole families are ravaged by its impact; huge amounts of time and money consumed caring for sick relatives.
The government has developed plans aimed at tackling the disease, and international funding is earmarked. But the real challenge is Malawi’s lack of basic health facilities and qualified staff, especially in remote rural areas.
Of course, governments like Malawi’s must take responsibility for their people and do their utmost to protect the most vulnerable. But rich countries also need to take a long, hard look at the kinds of policies being thrust upon the very poorest in their name by institutions such as the World Bank and IMF.
The international development community, too, needs a better, longer-term response to recurring and predictable hunger. Stepping in to keep people alive in the short term, while vital, does nothing to stem the loss of livelihoods and the downward spiral into absolute poverty that sees children growing up stunted by hunger, and families selling off everything they own just to stay alive.
Large-scale resources are needed to train and equip Malawi’s farmers to feed themselves and their people. More investment in basic infrastructure – rural roads, markets, irrigation and so on – is essential if Malawi’s farmers are to play their essential part in the country’s development.
Poverty and its causes are certainly a more complicated explanation for Malawi’s repeated hunger crises than bad weather. Perhaps it is easier to think in terms of biblical cataclysms – “the poor are always with us” – than to conclude that, at bottom, this poverty is largely man-made.
The temptation for many people is to throw up their hands in despair, to believe Africa is doomed to never-ending hunger and suffering. Yes, there are huge challenges – and definitely no quick fixes – but Oxfam is convinced that poverty and hunger, like slavery and apartheid, can and must be overcome.
Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Reuters.
PREVIOUS | NEXT
